• Limit the weapons programme.

• Go in for imported uranium fuel — whatever the conditions attached to securing it.

The way out is six-fold

First, as far as nuclear reactors are concerned, look to them principally for our weapons programme, not for electricity — for we do have other ways of securing electricity, but we do not have other routes to nuclear weapons.

Second, for energy look to other clean sources. For instance, clean coal; methane through coal; most important, hydroelectric power. I remember studies that have been done about the enormous potential for the latter in just the Northeast. The 5-6 stage Dihang-Subhansiri project itself has the capacity to generate 22,000 megawatts. NHPC is now executing one part of it, and this alone will generate close to 2,000 megawatts. I remember how for a decade the Dibang project had been languishing with the Brahmaputra Board; that board was almost comatose, in any event it did not have in its charter the authority to raise money for projects; we strove to get it transferred to NHPC; NHPC is now executing the project; even this project has the capacity to generate 3,800 megawatts... This is the route to energy self-sufficiency, to energy security. We have the technology. We can fabricate the turbines and ancillary equipment right here. The projects will generate jobs in the numbers that we need.

Third, intensify uranium mining and milling. A myth has been spread by interested parties as well as by those who have not been able to get the irritants out of the way, that we do not have adequate natural uranium. A good corrective to such propaganda is an excellent study done by none other than Ashley Tellis, one of the architects of this very nuclear deal, and one of its most persuasive advocates.

... contd.